As we close in on the end of the year, Google's developers are lining things up for possible late-2016 launches or preparing to test features they plan to launch next year. With the rollout of Google Play services v10.0, a couple of those things stand out as current projects. There are signs final testing has begun for Instant Apps, Google's way to give users a way to use apps without actually installing them. It also looks like some progress has been made towards enabling Android Pay to work through Android Wear.

NFC payments have seen a slow but steady rise here in the US in the past few years. While far from achieving global penetration, systems like Android Pay and Apple Pay have actually become pretty commonplace in many large retail chains and even some small businesses via checkout services like Square in America. I'd say I'm using Android Pay, personally, about half the time I'm interacting with a card terminal these days.

But I know it's not like that for everybody, and that other systems like Samsung Pay, or some specific to certain banks in some countries, do exist. So I'm curious if you use NFC (and/or MST) and, specifically, which system you use.

YouTube v11.45 began its rollout to users yesterday. There aren't any obvious changes within the app, but there are a few things to see outside of it if you're running on a device that sees either round launcher icons or app shortcuts. But that's not all there is to check out. A teardown of the APK lends some new details about a couple of previously discussed features coming to YouTube in the future.

By now, no one should really be surprised at all the sales coming in to our emails and mailboxes. Interestingly, headphones seem to be a bit popular this time around. Seeing as a lot of people will be or are traveling, that makes sense. In today's deal, we have the recently announced JayBird X3 wireless in-ear headphones for $99.99 at Best Buy, a savings of $30.

When you enable two-factor authentication on your Google account, you have three options for logging in with a phone. The first is with a code generated from any 2FA application, such as Google Authenticator or Authy. Secondly, you can have Google send you an SMS message. Lastly, Google can prompt you on your phone to approve a sign-in attempt (as long as your phone has Google Play Services).

If you've bought a new Android device in the past six months, chances are pretty good that it charges via USB Type-C. There are some nice advantages to the new charging standard (that I wish was more standardized) but there is also one fairly large disadvantage. USB Type-C cords cost a lot more than their MicroUSB brethren.

That is, if you pay the full price for them. If you pick them up on sale, prices are a bit more tolerable. Today I've got three codes to share with you guys for three different two packs of USB Type-C to Type-A cables.

In many parts of the world, we are preparing for the most magical time of the year. What's better to go with the holiday season than a little bit of wizardry? Well, we've got you covered. The Lego Harry Potter games, both Years 1-4 and 5-7, are on sale for $0.49 each in several countries including the U.S.

Google Trips is one of the lesser-used Google apps - it was only released in April - but that's not to say it's not incredibly useful. When the time comes to plan a trip, the app should be the first thing you look at to decide what to do, where to eat, and check for any reserved tickets or other items. A new update, 0.0.42, for Trips has arrived on Google Play, adding some neat new functionality for even better ways to plan your trips.

By far the biggest thing in this update is the ability to have Trips prefer saved places when creating a day plan.